Ripeness is All

by Eric Linklater

  He ordered a bottle of burgundy. It was a roughish and hearty Richebourg, that rubbed the palate like horse-hair on a G string. He said, ‘Yes, I thought I could depend on you to take a broadminded view of my little escapade. It was a damned good idea, wasn’t it? It’s just the sort of thing that you might have thought of: though if you’d set out to do what I did, you’d have managed things better and probably been successful. Well, here’s luck, Arthur.’

  ‘Good luck,’ said Arthur. ‘It’s rather funny you should say that: I mean that I might have thought of the same idea. Because actually I did. It was several months ago that I began to toy with a scheme identical with yours, though I never put it into practice, of course. But I suppose that’s why you never really deceived me.’

  ‘I didn’t, eh?’

  ‘No, not really. I was doubtful for a while – you acted the part very well, George – but I can’t honestly say that you ever wholly took me in.’

  ‘You’re a shrewd fellow, Arthur.’

  ‘Well, I’ve had a certain amount of experience, of course. I’ve knocked about rather more than most of the people here.’

  ‘Yes, you’re a man of the world.’

  ‘Oh, in a very modest way. I learnt a good deal during the War, and since then, in business and affairs generally, I’ve always kept my eyes open and tried to think a little bit ahead of the other fellow, you know.’

  ‘And I expect you generally succeeded.’ George refilled the glasses. ‘I wish I’d seen more of you during the last few weeks. We’ve got a good deal in common, you know: we’ve both seen life in the raw, and survived a peck of uncommon experiences, and neither of us has any great respect for conventionality. If it ever came to a trial between us, I fancy you’d turn out to be a whole lot more of the husky adventurer than I am.’

  Arthur laughed a little laugh of pure delight, and closed a wicked eye. ‘I haven’t always lived as quietly as this,’ he said.

  ‘I bet you haven’t,’ said George.

  ‘Nowadays, of course, I’m rather tied down. Daisy and the children, you know. They’re a responsibility, and I can’t shirk it. I’m not grumbling, far from it, but sometimes I wish I was free to live my own life, as you do.’

  ‘It’s a pity you can’t come out to India with me,’ said George. ‘I’ve got a little bit of business on hand that would suit you down to the ground. There’s a mint of money in it, and a lot of fun as well. You’d see the humour of it.’

  ‘There’s nothing I’d like more, but I’m afraid it’s impossible. You mustn’t tempt me, George. It wouldn’t take much to persuade me to go, and my conscience would never forgive me. I’ve a wife and family to think of, and they must come first. But it’s a bitter disappointment to have to say no.’

  ‘You could take a share in the business, and a share in the joke and the profits too, without ever going outside Lammiter if you think it would amuse you, and if you’d like to make some easy money.’

  ‘My capital is rather tied up at present …’

  ‘Let’s have another bottle of burgundy, and I’ll tell you all about it.’

  With an easy mastery of his subject, George spoke for several minutes about the romance of India, and alluded in some detail to the enormous wealth of the Indian princes. The second bottle was brought, and fresh glasses, and the robust wine enabled Arthur to see, with ever increasing clarity, the gorgeously crowded scenes that George described. He drank his burgundy in generous gulps.

  ‘Now, there’s a friend of mine in Bombay’, George continued, ‘who’s negotiating, at this very moment, with the Maharajah of Cooch-Parwanee, with a view to installing up-to-date bathrooms and modern sanitation in the royal palace. This friend of mine – fill up your glass, Arthur – was once a contractor and plumber in a very big way of business. But he had a lot of bad luck, and now he’s hard put to it to find enough capital to go ahead with. So I’ve gone into partnership with him, and I’m trying to raise a little money so that we can start right away, as soon as I get back. As an investment it’s an absolute gold-reef.’

  ‘But I don’t see anything humorous about it.’

  ‘You haven’t had a chance to yet. Plumbing’s only the start of it, Arthur. – Have some more burgundy – You see, this friend of mine is also an expert photographer. Now by virtue of his plumbing he has the entrée to the innermost recesses of the royal palace, and being a Kodak enthusiast he brings away lasting souvenirs of his happy visit. In other words, he goes in with a green marble bathroom and chromium taps, and comes out with a complete pictorial representation of Saturday Night in the Harem. And, as you know, in the present state of journalism such records are valuable, especially in America. But our Indian princes are great believers in the privacy of the home, so it’s likely the Maharajah would also be interested in the copyright of our pretty pictures, and might even be induced to bid handsomely for it.’

  ‘It’s a dangerous job,’ said Arthur, ‘a very dangerous job indeed.’

  George laughed loudly. ‘That sounds funny, coming from you,’ he said. ‘When did the thought of danger ever prevent you from doing anything?’

  ‘Never,’ said Arthur. ‘And that’sh why I say it’s a dangerous job, a cateristically dangerous job. And from the legal point of view …’

  ‘Now don’t say that I’m suggesting anything illegal! Damn it, Arthur, I thought you knew me better than that! This is a very sound business proposition, built on the two axioms that supply creates demand, and competition is the life of trade.’

  ‘It’s a racket,’ said Arthur.

  George, with an indignant fist, thumped the table. ‘It’s nothing of the sort,’ he said. ‘It’s a commercial venture, pure and simple.’

  ‘Then I don’t want to have anything to do with it. But if it’s a racket, I’ll invest two hundred pounds in it.’

  George stared at him in amazement.

  ‘I’m a natural racketeer,’ said Arthur proudly. ‘Cribbed, cabin’d, and confined in sordid domistecity, I don’t get much scape for my inclinotions. But you’re different. You’re free. You go where you like and do as you please. All over the world!’ – With a magnificent gesture Arthur swept a wine-glass and a toast-rack from the table. – ‘And if you’re going to be a racketeer, I’ll help you. Because that’s what I am too. A spiritual racketeer.’

  Arthur thrust his hand across the table, and George, concealing his astonishment, shook it warmly.

  ‘You’re a grand fellow,’ he said, and suddenly shouted with laughter.

  ‘True words often spoken in jest,’ said Arthur solemnly.

  ‘I’ll send you a complete set of all the photos we take.’

  Arthur began to sing: “Pale hands I loved, beside the Shalima-ar”.’

  ‘Shut up,’ said George. ‘We’ve got a lot of business to talk yet. When can you give me the money?’

  ‘Going to the bank right away,’ said Arthur. ‘Cash a cheque for two hundred pounds, hand it over, and instantatiously become a racketeer.’

  ‘I’ll see that you get more than your fair share of the profits,’ said George.

  They shook hands again. ‘I trust you implicibly,’ said Arthur.

  The bank was round the corner, and Arthur, after a short consultation with the manager, cashed his cheque and handed George a crackling sheaf of twenty-pound notes. George thanked him heartily; and looked at the clock. ‘My God!’ he said, ‘it’s ten to three!’

  ‘Time for another drink,’ said Arthur.

  ‘Like hell there is. My train goes at three!’

  Fortunately they found a taxi not very far away, and drove hurriedly to the station. Arthur, with his arm round George’s neck, sang loudly,

  ‘Farewell and adieu to you, gay Spanish ladies,

  Farewell and adieu to you, ladies of Spain!’

  Hilary, in the meantime, waited anxiously on the platform with Doris and Tessie and Mr Peabody. Clarice and the little boys, with a good deal of luggage, were already in the carriage: Clarice content
edly read a gaily bound book, while the little boys beat large toy drums that Hilary had given them.

  Doris, with admirable regard for the conventions, maintained polite conversation of the proper valedictory kind: ‘It has been ripping of you, Aunt Hilary, to put us up for so long, and give us such a jolly good time. We have enjoyed ourselves no end, haven’t we, Tessie?’

  Tessie nodded glumly. She had been hoping to see Sergeant Pilcher at the station. She had already said goodbye to her other admirers, and she wore, with some pride, two engagement rings, a silver bracelet, and a brooch with red and green stones in it. But at five minutes to three there was no sign of the Sergeant, and her feelings were hurt.

  Hilary said nervously, ‘If we only knew where to look for George!’

  ‘Do not fear,’ said Doris, ‘he will be here in a jiffy. Our father is always in plenty of time.’

  ‘He isn’t your father,’ said Hilary with a flicker of irritation.

  ‘Here he comes!’ cried Tessie, and waving her hand excitedly, ran to meet, not George, but the Sergeant.

  Doris said politely, ‘We shall have such lots of news to tell to all our friends in Bombay when we get back to India. They will be highly interested to hear about our visit home to England, and it is nice that we can say how much we have enjoyed it.’

  One of the little boys put down his drum and began to cry: ‘Bahut bhukha hun, bahut bhukha hurt!’

  ‘He is a cross-patch,’ said Doris. ‘He cannot be hungry now, when he has had such a good dinner only a short time ago.’

  Mr Peabody looked at his watch and compared it with the station clock. Both showed two minutes to three.

  ‘Here’s George now,’ exclaimed Hilary with great relief. ‘And Arthur too,’ she added.

  Arm-in-arm, George and Arthur advanced to the train. Arthur was still singing.

  ‘Hurry up!’ cried Hilary.

  ‘Plenty of time,’ said Arthur, and boldly putting his arm round Doris’s shoulder, kissed her warmly.

  ‘Oh, Uncle Arthur, what a flirt you are!’ she said.

  ‘Tessie! Get into the train at once.’

  Reluctantly Tessie parted from Sergeant Pilcher. She now wore a string of pearls whose large refulgence put all the oysters in the world to shame.

  The guard, the stationmaster, and a porter converged on the diminishing group, and Doris was persuaded to go aboard. Arthur, for the third time, was singing ‘Farewell and adieu to you, gay Spanish ladies’, and George was still shaking Hilary’s hand in warm farewell. ‘You must come out and see us some day,’ he said. ‘We’ll give you a fine time in Bombay. And you too, Peabody. Forgive and forget: that’s my motto. We’ll paint the old town red: moonlight picnics at Juhu, drinks at Mongini’s, trips to Elephanta, dinner at Green’s: it’s a grand place, Bombay!’

  ‘Good old George!’ said Arthur. ‘All racketeers together! Don’t forget the pretty pictures, George.’

  George was thrust into the carriage, and the station-master slammed the door. Shrilly a whistle blew, and the engine answered with a huge belch of steam. Clarice pressed her nose whitely against the glass, and the little boys, like catfish in an aquarium tank, stared from the dim interior. From the open window emerged a pyramid of faces as George and Tessie and Doris looked their last at Lammiter. With a loud dactylic rhythm the train gathered speed, and spilled from innumerable passing windows the momentary dark images of those who waved good-bye.

  ‘Good old George!’ shouted Arthur, and flourished his hat, and danced a little dance on the platform.

  Chapter 23

  Hilary’s task in converting the Vicar to reason was long and arduous, and on several occasions she found it difficult to maintain her own common sense. She began by persuading him to tell her all he knew about their father, the late Jonathan Gander. It was a remarkable story, and it affected Hilary in much the same way as the Vicar had been affected by his discovery of Karl Marx and religious doubt. She had the sensation of being uprooted, of suddenly waking to find herself in a foreign country. She was afflicted by a feeling of perilous insecurity, and by a recurrent dread that all her friends were strangers under their skins. For Jonathan Gander, whom the years had dignified but devitalized, whom time had enthroned as that exemplar of scarcely human probity, the Victorian parent, was now revealed as a cunning and persistent libertine. More than once she was tempted to concur in her brother’s desire for secrecy, and only by the exercise of considerable resolution was she able to turn her back on this easy escape. Though it was beyond question that the comfort of a living Vicar, and of his children, was more important than the reputation of a dead manufacturer, yet Hilary’s baser and more timid self could not refrain from questioning, and her good sense had to tell her the proper answer several times a day, to keep her aware of it.

  Jonathan Gander had had at least seven illegitimate children; but unlike his son the Major, who had desired above all things a multiplication of Ganders and the increase of their name, he had exercised great ingenuity and no little expense in concealing his fertility and planting his offspring in other nests. Lionel’s mother, when Lionel was eighteen months old, had married an amiable young man called Purefoy. Her liberal dot had purchased a small preparatory school in the northern part of Brackenshire, and Purefoy, who had taken a good degree at Cambridge, and was industrious as well as sensible, had done very well there. Jonathan had sent him two pupils, and several of his friends, it appeared, had also found the institution useful: Purefoy was discreet, and turned out to be an excellent teacher, while Mrs Purefoy was devoted to small boys and happily extravagant in her housekeeping.

  She maintained her friendship with Jonathan till his second marriage, in 1892. She had been his confidante, and apparently his accessory in certain negotiations, and so long as she lived – she had died in 1910, two years after her husband – she had spoken of him to Lionel with admiring fondness. At the age of fourteen Lionel had learnt by accident who his father was, and for five years he had concealed his knowledge in the miserable silence of youth. Then, in the heat of some petty quarrel, he had told his mother what he knew, and she, without shame, had replied that he had a father to be proud of. ‘And so’, she added, ‘have several other young people of my acquaintance, if they only realized it.’

  But Lionel had not learnt the full extent of his father’s activities till 1904, when Jonathan died. Mrs Purefoy, greatly moved by his death, had then told him the whole story, together with the names and whereabouts of the other children. She was still proud of her friendship with Jonathan. She admired him not only for his manliness and generosity, but for the cleverness with which he had conducted his affairs and camouflaged their consequences; she entrusted his secrets to Lionel in the spirit of one who could not bear to see the fame of a great man forgotten or neglected, and at her death she bequeathed to him a sealed bundle of letters and other papers that fully confirmed all she had previously told him.

  These papers he still possessed. He had preserved them, he had worn the knowledge of their existence, like a hair-hirt. He had kept them to punish himself, by constant iwareness of thern, for letting the world believe that Purefoy was his father. He had tormented himself by watching the fate and fortune of his fellow by-blows: Jonathan’s llegitimate family had acquired a European amplitude, an international significance, for one of them, the son of a French maid, had been killed while fighting in defence of Verdun, and another, the offspring of a German governess, had died, no doubt with equal bravery but on the wrong side, in the Battle of the Marne; a third, an Australian six feet high, had fallen, all the long length of him, on the beach at Anzac.

  ‘So that’s what his love-making came to,’ said Hilary.

  ‘They were brave, but they didn’t live long.’

  ‘Except the Peabodies, and Lord Fosgene.’

  ‘I’ve always felt very uncomfortable with Peabody,’ said the Vicar.

  ‘So have I, for the last few days.’

  ‘It would ruin his life, as it has rui
ned mine, if he knew the truth.’

  ‘But there’s no need to tell him the truth. Not the whole truth! There’s no need to say anything about six out of the seven. You’re the only one we’re thinking of, and your claim can be proved without a single word about the others. Peabody is a bachelor, his sister is older than I am, and Fosgene, so far as I know, has one daughter. So we’re doing them no injustice by ignoring them, and I’m going to look through all these papers and burn every one that refers to them. But the others, the ones that concern you, I’m going to take to Peabody, and Peabody will do whatever’s necessary to get you the money.’

  Lammiter was nearly empty, in the social sense of the word, when the last and most astonishing news about the Gander estate began, by devious paths, to circulate, and was eventually admitted to be true. Miss Montgomery and Mrs Sabby, Sir Gervase, Mrs Corcoran and Miss Foster, and all who could afford a summer holiday were at the seaside or in Scotland, or cruising in the Norwegian fjords. Distance somewhat reduced the impact of the tidings, and the comparative isolation of those who heard them – at Teignmouth. or Crieff, or Molde – diminished their effect. But even ir these adverse circumstances they caused such astonishment that all who received them grew aware of a lessened interest in their foreign surroundings and an impatient desire tc return to Lammiter and see for themselves how, in the Vicar’s familiar countenance, the light of their new knowledge might be reflected, and to observe the effect of this amazing discovery on Arthur and Daisy, on Hilary and Stephen and Jane.

  But when, about the end of August, most of them did return, their curiosity, or the greater part of it, found no satisfaction; for Hilary and the Vicar and all his family had gone. He had written to the Bishop asking leave to resign his charge immediately, on the plea of ill health; a locum tenens, a malaria-thin chaplain from Bankipore, was living at the Vicarage; and Rumneys, with blinds drawn and gates locked, was deserted. Hilary had fled, and the Vicar had fled. It was only when she suggested flight as a lenitive for the gaping wound of revelation that he had capitulated, and allowed her to inform Mr Peabody of his birth and claim to the estate. Hilary had taken for three months a large house near Applecross, in the remote parts of Scotland, where, with the aid of solitude, and the sea and the Atlantic breeze, the Vicar might mend his strength and his mind, and where plans might be made for the future, and in particular, for the education of his difficult family.